Does February = Chocolate for You?

It is  almost Valentine's Day. My husband and I celebrated this past Saturday as we always do (one week early) to avoid the crowded restaurants and over-priced everything. We have a favorite place where I almost always order the "vegetable plate" for $13.00. I am such a cheap date. You can select four vegetables to customize your plate.  I chose heirloom beets with a touch of goat cheese and toasted walnuts, steamed broccoli (perfectly cooked), roasted asparagus and kumato tomatoes. I have never seen so much color or so many phytonutrients on one plate.  Yes, we shared a bottle of delicious red wine. What an amazing dinner and we did not over do the food.

Just because it is Valentine's Day (or Easter or Christmas or your birthday or St. Patrick's Day) it does not mean you have to derail your intention of getting and staying healthy. When I eat out I think it is easy to stay on track (at some restaurants) due to the choices of side dishes that they offer. Why not order a large salad and two sides dishes: rice pilaf and roasted asparagus. You can fill up on high volume, low calorie foods and after those three dishes your 1 liter stomach will be full and satiated with less room for cheating. You can still go to an upscale restaurant and stay on track. It is your choice.
Now that I am done with the lecture portion I need to tell you that CHOCOLATE is ok! I have a favorite chocolate which I buy at Whole Foods. The name of the bar is Fair Exchange. You can buy 71% or 80% cacao. The ingredients are "whole" and the chocolate is delicious. The bar is low in carbs with a hefty serving size of nine squares. Now I can live with that.
Along the same line, you can make healthier desserts which include high quality chocolate that can help you satisfy the need for Valentine Chocolate, while not harming your health. I have two links below to amazing chocolate treats from Sunfoods:

1. Chocolate Nut Ganache : www.sunfood.com/blog/recipes/chocolate-nut-ganache/?
2. Nutty Power Bar: www.sunfood.com/blog/recipes/nutty-power-bar/

Another favorite dessert when I have guests, is oven-dried fruit with chocolate and toasted almonds. This requires some time to dry the fruit and toast the almonds but it is so beautiful

​and healthy ​

when displayed for guests on white parchment paper.

​Email me at deniselovathealthcoach@gmail.com to receive this recipe.

I have saved the best for last. The raw food chef Ani Phyo has an amazing Raspberry Fudge Cake. I took a raw foods class and we made this cake. It is fabulous and you only need a sliver to be happy.

​ Email me at deniselovathealthcoach@gmail.com to receive this recipe.​

This Valentine's Day, tell people in your life who are special to you...that they are special to you! Better yet, make them the Raw Raspberry Fudge Cake

​....​

actions speak louder than words.

To Your Best Health,

Denise Lovat

Certified Health Coach, AADP

I am available for Health Fairs and Workshops at your company. Email me at deniselovathealthcoach@gmail.com or call 248-330-6189.

Even Cow Girls Get the Blues

That is the title of a book I had to read in college. What it really means is that everyone can get the winter blues if you let yourself. This January may go on record with the largest snowfall in the month of January's history here in Michigan. It is fun, ridiculous and gorgeous when we get 10-12 inches of snow in one day...but we really don't want it to happen again.






I am pretty much done with winter after one dusting on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and then one big one in January.




Old man winter of course has a different idea. Here in Michigan we will be seeing snow flurries until Easter Sunday.  How can we make it through? Here are some ideas to fuel your connections so that the winter blues do not set in:

1. Host a wonderful brunch for friends for Valentines Day: You will be busy planning the menu, choosing the guest list, thinking about the table decorations and before you know it will be February 14th! I always host a Mother/Daughter Brunch on or around Valentines Day. I actually had requests to be added to the guest list. So awesome. (Remember I was a personal chef first!). The daughters were required to spend the night and help me cook for their moms. They served their mothers the next day and we have so many great memories over the years.
2. Make a plan with some good friends to organize a "Ladies Who Lunch" group (or Men Who Lunch or dinner!). You can look forward to getting out of the house once a week for lunch until Spring. Try some new vegan or vegetarian restaurants in your area. Dress up like it is a fancy occasion and enjoy each others company from 11:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. if you can. This is very low cost therapy. You can even make new friends by asking each member to bring a person that no one else knows to one of the events. You can call it "Mystery Guest" day (Mystery Guest, not Mystery Date!).  Now that is some good clean fun.
3. Plan a one night get-away for you and your spouse or a group of friends. It is always nice to get away from your routine in the winter if only for a day. Try Chelsea, Michigan and go to the Purple Rose Theater and stay at the bed and breakfast which sits right behind the theater. (The Chelsea House: http://www.chelseahouseinn.com/).
4. Plan an awesome end of January Shopping Day with your best friend. The sale racks are full of 70% off merchandise that you can take hours to discover. Pick a favorite place for lunch(Nordstrom Salmon Fish Tacos are amazing!). End the day with a pedicure or massage at Nordstrom's or a local spa. This will help you recharge and get ready for two more months of winter.
5. Invite two or more friends or family members to a "Cook and Share" with you on Saturday or Sunday. You each bring a great recipe and the ingredients for the recipe (double or triple depending on the number of people). You all cook each dish together, split up the servings and freeze so that you can have a few emergency meals to make your life easier.

See how fast the time went..... it is almost Spring. Don't let the winter blues sink in to your soul. Get busy connecting with friends and family.


To Your Best Health,



Denise Lovat
Certified Health Coach



I offer a free one-hour health history session: email me at deniselovathealthcoach@gmail.com. In the subject line write, HEALTH HISTORY.

Crowd out the old habits and add in the GOOD habits this New Year!

Is it time to experiment with new foods, new exercise, new friends and new careers this new year?
If you are ready to treat yourself better this year, here are some tips to help you get started.
Any change you make regarding food or exercise is considered a "keystone behavior." This means that it will start to impact other areas of your life positively and before you know it, you will be transformed into a butterfly.  I hope that some of these tips hit a bulls-eye for you.

Cut Back These	Add in These	Benefits
Chips and Salt Snacks	Raw toasted almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, pistachios, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds and chia seeds.	Nuts and seeds have preventative effects on diabetes, heart disease, breast disease and manage body weight.
Red Meat	Mushrooms of all types	Mushrooms have the texture of meat and can aid in weight loss. They will give you a better body composition (less belly fat) and are known to help prevent cancer. Add to soups, or saute with parsley and dill.
Sugar	Coconut Nectar, Maple Syrup, Raw Honey, Medjool dates	Sugar is inflammatory. When ingested it goes to our cells for energy (glucose). If our cells are already full of glucose they say "see ya" and send it to the liver to be stored as fat. Try three days without refined sugar and see how good your joints feel and the energy you have.
Coffee	Tea	Relaxing with a cup of tea can reset our physical and mental state in a positive way. Coffee will put our body in the fight or flight mode very quickly and then cause us to crash. There are specific benefits to each type of tea (black, white, oolong, green) and the additive tisanes i.e. ginger, peppermint, hibiscus. Just Google health benefits of tea and off you go.
Holding Grudges	Forgiveness	"Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward." C.S. Lewis
Acidic Foods	Alkaline Foods	Acidic foods promote inflammation in the body. Try to achieve a balance between these two. For example, oatmeal, walnuts and blueberries are all acidic. If you ate that for breakfast you should eat a large green salad with veggies for lunch to balance out your body. When the body is too acidic, it looks to alkalize itself, going to your bones to release calcium into the blood. As you can see, too much release of calcium would lead to weak bones. For a complete list of acidic and alkaline foods check out these two articles: http://www.rense.com/1.mpicons/acidalka.htm http://www.vegan-raw-diet.com/alkalinefoods.html
Being a Night Owl	Sleep 7+ hours per night	Sleep removes waste from our brain clearing toxins that could eventually lead to Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Pick one or two nights a week to get in bed before 9:30, you will awaken without your alarm clock and feel like taking on the world.
		Adapted from: Taste for Life, Jan 2014 To Your Best Health, Denise Lovat Certified Health Coach Visit my website at: http://www.deniselovathealthcoach.com/Services.html  to schedule a  free 1-hour health history consultation



Before you write too many New Year's Resolutions...Read This.

I don't know about you, but I am really hard on myself and never seem to be satisfied with my accomplishments when I look back on the year that is leaving us. This year we say good-bye to 2013. I tend to start with the negative: I did not get enough done, I was not a good enough mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, employee etc. I still have closets to clean and drawers to organize and stuff to donate....and ...and ....and.

I never liked New Year's Eve celebrations, the drinking, the overeating, the watching the ball drop, the feeling that life in the year of 20_ _ had gone too fast.

I have a strangely different attitude this year. I have never before felt this calm about another year moving by. As I contemplate the reasons why, I have discovered something that I did differently during this year than all other years: I have taken better care of myself. I HAVE TAKEN  BETTER CARE OF MYSELF. There, I said it!

I am not saying I have been perfect in every area. For example, going to the gym has been put on the back burner more than it should, but I jump rope in the garage if only for 10 minutes a day. I have concentrated on figuring out what was missing in my diet to cause intense cravings and the need to eat more often than I should. I have figured out how to eat for energy and for my best health. I am relying more on holistic practitioners to figure out how to keep me healthy. I am staying out of the conventional medical world where prescription drugs abound.

I have experimented with dairy, fats, proteins, raw cheese, grains, and yes chocolate too.

This New Year's Eve, I will have a very different feeling going into 2014. I am going to continue my "Year of Ultimate Health" which began April 2013 and ends in March 2014.

Before you write down all of those harsh New Years Resolutions ( I will never drink or eat again!) that are broken by February, why not just write down this one: "I WILL TAKE BETTER CARE OF MYSELF IN 2014!"

Make a declaration which states your intention for 2014 and write it out on a piece of paper. Post this declaration at work, on your wall in your home office, on your dashboard in your car. Just by writing it down, your mind, body and soul will take you there, I promise.

I made my declaration last April and it has worked beyond my wildest dreams:

April 2013 - March 2014

"The Year of Ultimate Health"

 

I wish you love and health in 2014.

To Your Best Health,

Denise Lovat
Certified Health Coach

Visit my website at: http://www.deniselovathealthcoach.com/Services.html
to schedule a  free 1-hour health history consultation.

Holidays Bring PeopleTogether ....are you sure?

No matter how hard we try, holiday-time can be stressful and sometimes unpleasant. Perhaps you and your mother's relationship has suffered this year. Maybe you and your spouse have been so busy taking care of your family and children that you have not made anytime to keep the fire burning. Do you have an old friend whom you are estranged from for a silly reason? Do you wish they were still in your life?

When we repair relationships, it can benefit our health immensely. Love relationships can bring immense happiness and joy, but when they are out of line, they can be the source of unhappiness, stress, misery and bad health.

Whether it is your mom, your sister, your brother, your spouse or and old friend, this December is a good time to start to heal and repair. You can try some of these strategies to get you started on the road to relationship recovery:

1. Make the first move: Who cares if you have to be the one to reach out. We are past the trivial, aren't we? Give this person a call and ask them to meet for a tea, coffee or cocktail. Tell them you were thinking about them and that you want to get together.
2. Learn to forgive: Harboring angry feelings about a relationship are unhealthy habits which cause little pockets of unhappiness in your body. Some day if you have enough of them they can present as disease. Forgive everyone for everything even if it is hard. The power of forgiveness is for the person who forgives, for you!
3. Change Yourself:  You know that saying, "the only person you can change is yourself." It is true. You can only change yourself and your reactions to other people's behavior. Instead of reacting with scorn or silence, reach out and heal.

If you need some help with your spouse, this is a great article about a technique called
H-E-A-L: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201304/four-steps-relationship-repair-the-h-e-l-technique

If you need some help with your mom, this is a great article about moms and daughters but could apply to anyone: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201304/four-steps-relationship-repair-the-h-e-l-technique

To Your Best Health and Merry Christmas!

Denise Lovat
Certified Health Coach

Visit my website at: http://www.deniselovathealthcoach.com/Services.html
 to schedule a  free 1-hour health history consultation.

Can you make the necessary changes to live out your life in good health?

I find myself at the grocery store almost every day of the week.  I like looking at the produce, shopping and having that time to relax and discover new things to buy. I really like older people and talking to them in the grocery store brings me joy.  The elderly are very sweet and interesting. The elderly always have comments about the price of food, the quality of food or the weather.

I was saddened by my conversation this week with an older diabetic man. His resistance to change, even when his life depends on it, seems stronger than his love of life itself.

We were admiring the sweet potatoes and how they were .59 cents per pound. He said "these sweet potatoes look great don't they?" I agreed and asked him how he usually cooked them. He said he baked or boiled them and that he was a diabetic. I told him that I bake several sweet potatoes in the evening, slice them in half, add coconut oil and put them in foil so that I can reheat in the morning for breakfast. I told him that I dip the delicious hot chunks of sweet potato in almond butter and that sweet potatoes have become my favorite breakfast.

He indicated that his doctor told him not to eat any fat or oil, so coconut oil was out of the question, (proper cell function depends on good fats). He then told me that he was a widower and that when he found out he was a diabetic, he was a vegan for a week and "never felt better." He went on to say that he liked the "traditional food like meat loaf, steak and baked potato."

I almost asked him to repeat the sentence that he just said and to listen carefully to what he was saying.

He said "I was a vegan for a week and NEVER FELT BETTER!" If that was the case, why wouldn't you want to feel that way always and forever? Why would you revert back to what is making you sick?

I am afraid he does not understand the impact that food has on his health. I am afraid that his doctor has not made it clear that he needs to drastically change what he is eating and that each time he eats, his food goes to the cellular level to either make his body work well or to disrupt his cell function and wreak havoc. I am afraid it is too late for this gentleman to make the changes necessary to live out his life in health and joy.

Can you make the changes necessary to live out your life in health?

Here are 11 tips to help you live to be 100!

1. Don't retire
2. Floss every day
3. Move around
4. Eat high fiber breakfast
5. Get at least 6 hours of sleep 
6. Consume whole foods
7. Be less neurotic
8. Live like a Seventh Day Adventist: cherish your body on loan from God
9. Be a creature of habit
10. Stay connected
11. Be conscientious

For more detail on each of these tips, go to: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/living-well-usn/slideshows/in-pictures-11-health-habits-that-will-help-you-live-to-100/12

source: US News and World report

To Your Best Health,

Denise Lovat
Certified Holistic Health Coach

Visit my website at: http://www.deniselovathealthcoach.com/Services.html
 to schedule a  free 1-hour health history consultation.

What is derailing YOU from reaching your health goals?

If you are not prepared for meals, this could be derailing you from reaching your health goals?

Today is Sunday. Sunday used to be my least favorite day. I would think about the week ahead of school or work and wonder how I was going to get it all done.  In college, Sundays were strange days because it was a lonely, uneventful day full of homework and feeling bad about being behind on homework and missing family time.

Now, Sundays are my favorite days. I have claimed them as mine! I have made Sunday's my day of cooking and getting ready for the week. Instead of letting the week knock me down like a title wave, I control how my week begins by having loads of prepared food in my refrigerator to take wherever I am going or to eat at home at meal times. I feel as if I have at least 10 extra hours a week just by taking the steps to PREPARE for meals in advance. Do we eat left-overs everyday? YES and I think it is the only way to live!

Today my cooking is underway with green lentil soup with kale, carrots, onions, celery, seranno chili peppers, tomato sauce:

I have also prepared spaghetti squash and acorn squash to add to our meals as sides:

I tried out these collard green wraps, with all raw julienned beets, carrots, cucumbers, green peppers and smashed avocado. I had one for lunch and loved them:

Lastly, I baked four sweet potatoes and have the coconut oil already on them to reheat and smother with almond butter for my breakfast of champions this week!

I hope you can take some time on Sundays to prepare for your meals for the week ahead. It is a great way to stay healthy and stay on track to reaching your goals.

If you would like the Vegan Collard Wrap recipe, please got to http://www.deniselovathealthcoach.com/Services.html. Where it says "request information, send me an email and write COLLARD WRAPS.

To Your Best Health,

Denise Lovat
Certified Health Coach